Last Updated: December 29, 2000
Printer-friendly version
Freedom of information
Plotting FOI strategy in the digital age
ASNE committee is working on basis that it’s possible
to protect and strengthen the public’s right to know while recognizing
reasonable privacy concerns
By Anders Gyllenhaal
Not long ago, I had the chance to meet with members of a state senate
committee studying public records and privacy in North Carolina. The session
was a good indication of what’s coming all across the country as freedom
of information collides with the Internet.
The senators had almost no idea what bills they wanted to propose. Few
constituents had even raised any complaints about new technologies, loss
of privacy or concerns over public records.
And yet they were more than ready to start drawing up legislation, maybe
even a broad rewrite of the state’s open government rules. What was driving
them? The same vague but powerful privacy movement fueled by the impacts
of the Internet that is sweeping the country.
In books, articles, political speeches and Internet chats, talk of privacy
is omnipresent. Freedom of information is not the specific target of most
of this clamor, but it could easily be among its victims as lawmakers go
to work converting their concerns into law.
Today, an estimated 1,200 bills on privacy are pending before
Congress and legislatures across the country. While freedom of information
has always had critics, it is safe to say the principles of government
openness, hammered into law over the past 40 years by leaders in our profession,
are under unparalleled assault.
What should newspapers be doing about this?
That’s the topic of a two-year project by the ASNE’s Freedom of Information
Committee. The goal is to develop a clear, aggressive strategy that answers
the many hard questions stacking up. Among them:
If the newspaper industry were to draw up a broad privacy policy, what
would it say? How would we propose governments at all levels deal with
the new revenue possibilities from the sale of their records? Where
do we stand on the peddling of commercial records on the Web? What should
individual newspapers be doing both to compete with commercial records
businesses and match newspaper standards? How do we keep the public service
role of public documents in front of our readers?
Over the past months, the FOI committee has developed this working notion:
It’s possible to protect and strengthen the public’s right to know at the
same time we recognize reasonable privacy concerns.
The project (see details on page 18) has started out by studying the
many forces now feeding these issues.
The Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center, a partner with ASNE on this
effort, is designing a public opinion poll that will look more deeply than
ever before into public sentiment. What are people really afraid of? What
have been their personal experiences? What are they willing to give up
in terms of access to government information?
At the same time, the committee will survey newspaper editors
on these same questions as well as what newsrooms are doing — or not doing
— to make use of existing access laws. In addition, the committee has hired
a researcher to study the commercial records industry, now a multi-billion-dollar
industry.
These findings will be ready for the convention next spring, after which
we’ll move to the theme of the project’s second year: What should we be
doing about this?
This phase of the project will include an FOI summit, a compilation
of best practices at various newspapers and a survey of leading FOI proponents
from over the years for their strategies. We’ll then turn all of this into
a proposed strategy to consider at the 2002 convention.
Along the way, we’re looking to work together with other organizations
that deal with FOI issues. One of the things that has changed the most
in recent years are the players in this whole arena.
Where this was once a struggle waged pretty much between the press and
the government, a host of powerful forces are stepping into the debate.
They include a long list of celebrities, the database trade, many politicians
and most of all the public, which showed only occasional interest in the
government openness questions of the past five decades.
It’s encouraging to remember that the history of freedom of information,
outlined so well in Eric Newton’s piece (page 17), is filled with enormous
challenges and tough opponents, from Supreme Court justices to presidents.
Today’s landscape may be different. But the bedrock has not changed:
Our system of government depends on openness to work. We hope this project
helps American editors carry that simple truth into the information age.
Gyllenhaal, executive editor of The News & Observer in Raleigh,
N.C., is chair of ASNE’s Freedom of Information Committee.
